Patches for The Roberta Williams Anthology?

[adambiser]

Hello, thanks for reading this and thanks to those maintaining this very helpful site!

I did search first and my apologies if anything here is already answered elsewhere.

I bought the Roberta Williams Anthology years ago and am trying to make an installer for it because the one included in the collection is 16-bit and therefore won't run on Windows 7 x64 (what I have now). I know that Collector has created some installers for use with the original CDs, but I'd like to make my own standalone installer so that the CDs can be stored away.

Since I'm making my own installer, I figured I might was well include all patches and emulators needed to run the games nowadays. I'm already including the latest versions of AppleWin, DOSBox, and ScummVM emulators and I seem to have all of the games working, so that part is done. However, I've been looking over the patches page on this site and my main question is whether my files are the most up-to-date copies of the games? I have already fixed the choppy KQ6 intro animation bug by replacing the VGA320.DRV file with one dated May 28, 1993. I also replaced that same file in KQ5 and that seems to work OK. I have looked at the SCRIPT.084/085 fix for the KQ1 remake and see that it's needed to run the game through DOSBox, but not through ScummVM.

Is there a PDF version of the RWA manual some place? I am hoping to avoid scanning my manual, but will if necessary.

KQ7
What about the firecracker speed glitch in KQ7? How is that fixed? The KQ7 installers on this site don't seem to recognize my RWA CDs, so I don't know what it does to fix the problem.

I have also noticed that the singing in the KQ7 intro has a lot of static-sounding noise in the singing. I haven't found a good setting for this yet. Does anyone have any suggestions for this?

Best Emulation?
Is AppleWin the best Apple II emulator? I used it since that's what the original CDs had on them.

DOSBox vs ScummVM? From what I can tell, ScummVM is best for KQ1 Remake, KQ5, and KQ6 since they go 640x400, but I've found that going directly into ScummVM's fullscreen mode for the older games (ones that are 320x200, including the Laura Bow games) still show the Windows taskbar along the bottom (unless you switch to windowed then fullscreen mode again), so for those, I'm using DOSBox. Does this match others' experiences?

Sorry, I know there are many questions here, but didn't want to make a new topic for each one. I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. Thanks again!

[Collector]

The games in the RWA are the latest versions of the games. The only patches that you may wish to apply are the NRS patch for KQ1SCI and some updated sound drivers. You already got the video driver for KQ6. It does nothing for KQ5.

There is no fix for the firecracker bug, only the work around of using DOSBox with a lower cycles setting. Most versions of KQ7 do not include a DOS interpreter. Only v.2 had it. My installer for KQ7 includes three different binary difference patches to update the most common version to v. 2.00b to set it up in DOSBox to work around the firecracker bug. It detects which version the user has to apply the right patch. The RWA already includes 2.00b, so it only needs to be set up properly in DOSBox. The DOS movies (RBT) are inferior to the Windows' AVI, so the noise is something that needs to be tolerated. You will have trouble with the Mixed-up Mother Goose SCI unless you have the installer mount a virtual CD for the game to invoke MSCDEX or patch the sound driver the way my RWA does.

AppleWin is probably the best native Windows emulator, but there is a Java version that is better. I have not looked into what may be required to get it to run locally. I would strongly recommend the use of DOSBox set to Tandy for the AGI games. The Sound will be superior to ScummVM's. About the only thing that ScummVM offers over DOSBox is the fake mouse support for a game that was not designed for a mouse. ScummVM is preferable for KQ6 for the Windows graphics (High res dialog images).

For the RWA the main thing is getting the settings correct. You can use my RWA installer to examine what it does.

[adambiser]

The games in the RWA are the latest versions of the games. The only patches that you may wish to apply are the NRS patch for KQ1SCI and some updated sound drivers. You already got the video driver for KQ6. It does nothing for KQ5.

Thank you for your reply, Collector. I noticed the NRS patch (SCRIPT.084/085) for KQ1SCI which is good when running through DOSBox, but not needed through ScummVM (ScummVM even complains about it). I'll probably be running it through ScummVM, so that patch might not be needed in the end.

I didn't notice any changes when I replaced the video driver in KQ5, but figured I would make sure it had the same version for good measure if nothing else.

There is no fix for the firecracker bug, only the work around of using DOSBox with a lower cycles setting. Most versions of KQ7 do not include a DOS interpreter. Only v.2 had it. My installer for KQ7 includes three different binary difference patches to update the most common version to v. 2.00b to set it up in DOSBox to work around the firecracker bug. It detects which version the user has to apply the right patch. The RWA already includes 2.00b, so it only needs to be set up properly in DOSBox. The DOS movies (RBT) are inferior to the Windows' AVI, so the noise is something that needs to be tolerated.

Thanks for the info, what values are you using for cycles to get past that part of the game? I have never played this game in the series and only watched through the intro.

You will have trouble with the Mixed-up Mother Goose SCI unless you have the installer mount a virtual CD for the game to invoke MSCDEX or patch the sound driver the way my RWA does.

I haven't dealt with MG yet, but thanks for the tip!

AppleWin is probably the best native Windows emulator

I'll stick with it then. Thanks again!

I would strongly recommend the use of DOSBox set to Tandy for the AGI games. The Sound will be superior to ScummVM's. About the only thing that ScummVM offers over DOSBox is the fake mouse support for a game that was not designed for a mouse. ScummVM is preferable for KQ6 for the Windows graphics (High res dialog images).

OK, I didn't try Tandy. I will and see what I think.

For the RWA the main thing is getting the settings correct. You can use my RWA installer to examine what it does.

Well crap! Somehow I completely missed that installer! I guess I had just been looking under "King's Quest" instead of "R". I will try it out soon and compare what I've done to what it does.
If I had seen it before, it probably would have eliminated the need for this topic. Sorry about that!

Thanks again for your help!

[Collector]

I strongly recommend DOSBox for all of the SCI0 games. The sound is superior in DOSBox and it does not use a faked pallet.

The installer is not listed with the KQ section because the collection is all of the games by Roberta Williams, not just the KQ games. Look at the bottom of the page for the collection installers.